Trying to master a foreign language

Cine: Un Cuento Chino

Paris is a great place to live if you like foreign movies. And by foreign, I don’t mean American blockbusters (which, in France, are foreign films too). What I mean is it’s a great place to live if you like movies from everywhere else in the world. The latest Argentinian comedy-drama, Un cuento chino, is playing everywhere, in Spanish, with French subtitles.

Un cuento chino (released in France as El Chino) is the opposite of a blockbuster. The only action is in the opening scene, which features a cow falling from the sky. The premise is as follows: reclusive, and misanthropic hardware store owner gets saddled with a young Chinese immigrant who is lost and does not speak a word of Spanish. The helpless young man eventually forces him out of his shell and makes him confront the traumatic events of his youth, also those of the country as a whole.